I'm still marveling at the experience of sharing at the U of Manitoba Celebrations Week on the subject of how Trauma Inspires Art. I feel like Jonah above, and wonder were the holes are or were in my presentation. I'm a little nervous continually asking myself, 'what did I really say up there and will it stand under scrutiny?' I feel like there are holes in my boat and that I need to plug them up as quickly as possible.
I want to thank everyone for their support. Especially for the presence of friends and acquaintances at the event. At the end I asked the organizer how I did as far as attracting a crowd and she responded, "Excellent for a non-celebrity." I decided to take that as a compliment! "And," she added, "you kept your crowd."
It is through trials, trouble and trauma that we as humans are inspired to create things both collectively and individually that tell the story. Sometimes we have no words for what we've just seen or experienced and so it becomes necessary to create something to tell the story, to make a memory of it, something visual that then also becomes a memorial of our experience. It of course helps if it can also have some aesthetic beauty of course. Then, as time goes on these things we create speak to us again of new underlying messages we never realized at the time. New understandings of who we are as humans, of our resilience as we remember our thoughts and new levels of awareness as a during the very process of creating.
Therefore we must re-think our attitudes towards trials and trouble. Should we not be glad for them? Should we not cheer when these gifts of reversals, illnesses, depression, accidents, deaths and such come our way? I know, that sounds rather ridiculous as we actually hate the bad things that happen to us. We want to put our trauma behind us, forget about it, hide it, if fact bury it if we can. The problem is they come back to haunt us. They affect our lives negatively. We don't always realize it but they affect us in weird ways haunting us and distorting our lives in the future.
Our only solution is to deal with them.
Therefore, should we not live in anticipation of difficulties for it is in the midst of these that our creativity explodes to new heights of brilliance as we seek to survive. It is in the tensions of grasping to survive, process, grieve and just live, that great creative efforts come to reality. Movies, books, stories, theater, music, visual arts, memorials of all kinds are created and celebrated because of all these things. And what do you know! We are healed by that creativity. The very process of creativity changes our thinking and attitudes for the better. We are feeling good, doing something. We are feeling like we are accomplishing something. We are amazed at the results of our creative efforts. We are engaging our right brains which also brings good feeling for us.
Because of what we have learned, how we have grown and what we've achieved we can in time actually love and appreciate those healed wounds, we can love those now beautiful scars of the past.
I pray we, every one of us, could all come to that place as a result of each of our challenges in life, whatever they may be.
Let's get busy, share that pain, tell that story in your own way, your own "creative" way and thereby experience the healing medicine of the creative process!
I want to thank everyone for their support. Especially for the presence of friends and acquaintances at the event. At the end I asked the organizer how I did as far as attracting a crowd and she responded, "Excellent for a non-celebrity." I decided to take that as a compliment! "And," she added, "you kept your crowd."
It is through trials, trouble and trauma that we as humans are inspired to create things both collectively and individually that tell the story. Sometimes we have no words for what we've just seen or experienced and so it becomes necessary to create something to tell the story, to make a memory of it, something visual that then also becomes a memorial of our experience. It of course helps if it can also have some aesthetic beauty of course. Then, as time goes on these things we create speak to us again of new underlying messages we never realized at the time. New understandings of who we are as humans, of our resilience as we remember our thoughts and new levels of awareness as a during the very process of creating.
Therefore we must re-think our attitudes towards trials and trouble. Should we not be glad for them? Should we not cheer when these gifts of reversals, illnesses, depression, accidents, deaths and such come our way? I know, that sounds rather ridiculous as we actually hate the bad things that happen to us. We want to put our trauma behind us, forget about it, hide it, if fact bury it if we can. The problem is they come back to haunt us. They affect our lives negatively. We don't always realize it but they affect us in weird ways haunting us and distorting our lives in the future.
Our only solution is to deal with them.
Therefore, should we not live in anticipation of difficulties for it is in the midst of these that our creativity explodes to new heights of brilliance as we seek to survive. It is in the tensions of grasping to survive, process, grieve and just live, that great creative efforts come to reality. Movies, books, stories, theater, music, visual arts, memorials of all kinds are created and celebrated because of all these things. And what do you know! We are healed by that creativity. The very process of creativity changes our thinking and attitudes for the better. We are feeling good, doing something. We are feeling like we are accomplishing something. We are amazed at the results of our creative efforts. We are engaging our right brains which also brings good feeling for us.
Because of what we have learned, how we have grown and what we've achieved we can in time actually love and appreciate those healed wounds, we can love those now beautiful scars of the past.
I pray we, every one of us, could all come to that place as a result of each of our challenges in life, whatever they may be.
Let's get busy, share that pain, tell that story in your own way, your own "creative" way and thereby experience the healing medicine of the creative process!
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